Bones Break
by Unfortunate Fates
Summary: Bones break; bones heal. It's only taken you this long to understand that the eventual recovery is not always worth the pain of the fall.
1. You're getting sloppy

For someone whose life has been built around lies for as long as you can remember, you sure are awfully quiet.

When you do talk, it isn't pour-your-heart-out, either. For whatever reason (and you can name plenty), during your childhood you learned to lie and you learned to lie well. You lied to everyone: teachers, family, even what few friends you had.

The counselors tried to talk to your parents about it, but you never felt much inclined to share your true opinion. Sometimes, in show and tell, you'd make up stories in which you're the hero. This is my cape, it helps me fly. These are my claws, they're very sharp, one time I killed an evil monster with them. This is my crystal, I use it to teleport, but I can only use it at certain times, which is why I couldn't get out of the closet when I accidentally locked myself inside. The kids laugh rudely, but you're too busy pretending. The only one who ever champions you is you. So you have to do a good job at it, or you'll get sad again.

It was self-preservation, do or die, survival instincts on steroids. What exactly was pumping through your veins, you aren't sure, but it was potent and shady and dark in a way you could never really figure out how to wrap your head around.

As time wore on it only got worse, and the only way your father knew to beat you was by the numbers on your report card, by the fat, red letter grades signifying failure. You want to tell him that it's hard to study when every muscle is clenched in fear, but you don't. By that point you were still trying to reconcile your big, sarcastic mouth with your wild desire to keep yourself unbroken.

Later, much later, your guard starts to go down. Not much, but enough that you find yourself telling the truth every once in a while. Lying isn't quite so compulsive. Derek might break a bone every once in a while, but this time you heal. You figure that maybe it's okay to get bent out of shape as long as you can be bent back into shape afterward. It isn't falling and getting back up so much as scraping a knee and slapping a bandage over it. Survival instincts. The things you know.

Your barriers are still there, though you don't test them nearly so much as you probably should. Derek finds out about your dad, then Erica, then Boyd. Erica tries to bring it up but you shut her down so fast her eyes water. Boyd just pats your shoulder, and it takes every ounce of self-restraint in your body not to shake him off and then keep shaking until he gets it, that you were all your father had and you weren't good enough, that you drove your father mad while he was still grieving, that you are not a victim but someone caught in the crosshairs, and no matter how you tried you couldn't run fast enough. The past has a funny way of catching up with you.

Most nights you have trouble breathing, but you don't let yourself label it. Sometimes you feel your chest is a vice, and when Derek's eyebrows rise, alarmed, at the acrid stench of fear pouring off of you in waves, you just wait until he smells the bitter dark of loathing and leaves you alone. They aren't panic attacks; they're just reminders. Don't get too comfortable. History repeats itself. These things are your fault and you can never make up for them. Your bones are written with songs of loss and it will not get better from here.

It's not as hard to lie to werewolves when you have years of practice with humans who hate you, with humans who are actively looking for you to screw up. You figure out where your chinks are, and have worked to eliminate the tic in your jaw, the lip biting, the hand run messily through your curls. Your heartbeat is as steady as it's ever been, and for once you thank your usual frantic pace of life. No one can tell whether you're lying or not because you're always afraid. The ghosts follow you around.

It makes you feel invincible; you're the best liar in the pack by far, and though it irritates Derek, it also impresses him, albeit grudgingly. You help Erica and Boyd work on their heart rates and darting eyes, and start to think you might be useful for something, after all. You think you're unstoppable until you realize you aren't. For some things there are no defenses.

You meet Scott McCall on a cloudy Tuesday at the beginning of Freshman year. You are both human, you are both unpopular, you are both unnoticed. The similarities end there. Scott is unpopular but he is not unloved, and he wears his kindness around his eyes. They look like coffee, but you don't notice. At least, you try not to. But the year goes on, and you keep noticing, and he doesn't notice you back, so you set your sights on someone you know will reject you because sometimes you need the certainty of cruelty in your life.

(She does reject you. And then you try to kill her. She doesn't die, so you figure you're about even.)

Your path doesn't cross McCall's again until he's a wolf and you are, too. You start to wonder what you ever saw in him, chalk up his bravery to a misplaced sense of responsibility to humanity and a heavy dose of stupidity. He's not a threat, anyway, you have Derek who doesn't lock you in a freezer and Erica who was entirely unfazed when you told her you think your mom killed herself and Boyd who only talks when it's convenient because he thought this would be different, thought this would be some happy-go-lucky normal family, some group of friends bonded so closely you could call it love. You snort to yourself. That doesn't happen in real life, not to people like you.

But then you realize that Scott is a threat, except not the kind you thought, and everything is confusing because you've never known anyone like him in your life. You're hesitant to call him _good,_ because people can turn into monsters perfectly fine without a full moon, but you don't know what other word encompasses him that well. You think back to coffee eyes, and maybe _kind_ will do until you find a substitute that doesn't make you sound like a thirteen-year-old with a crush.

The awful part about it all is that you think you'd be okay if he'd leave you well enough alone, but he's actually taken a liking to you. No one does that. No one likes you. Tolerates, maybe; uses, definitely. But people don't seek you out. Everything you touch falls to ruin, fractures into pieces under your fingertips, and you think he'll be the same, but you can't find the words to tell him to run so instead you talk to him a bit in clipped sentences and accidentally find yourself being more honest than you've been your entire life.

He's just different. He found your walls and, instead of leaving them be, tried to punch right through them. People don't look at you like they want to puzzle you out in pieces, but Scott isn't people, not really, and you can't remember when you started calling him Scott instead of McCall, can't remember when you got used the sound of his name off your tongue. He doesn't want you to get hurt and he saves you from psychotic hunters with bewildering agendas and he looks at you until you want to tuck tail and run.

You don't realize you trust him until you say it out loud, and maybe that's the most troubling thing of all. He pulls things out of you that you didn't know were there.

It's the full moon that clinches it, though. The first time you run together, it's startling. The night is clear and the moon is bright and he agreed to run with the pack because the alternative was trying to keep control around his mom, and the last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt, you know, because it's so hard, especially since his anchor is still super shaky since Allison- you cut him off because you _know, Scott, it's fine, we're just running, you don't have to join the pack, really_. (Unless he wants to, which would be weirdly fine with you, and you don't pause to examine why.)

You shift more easily than you ever have before, slipping into this new skin like you're not ashamed of it, like you're not planning to use it against yourself. Tonight, you don't use a claw to slash open your skin and watch it heal. You just run, run, run, howling and giddy with moonlight. Your veins feel like live wires, electric, and your only direction is pack. Every once in a while a flash of red eyes keeps you away from residential areas, because you couldn't do it yourself, and you're so caught up in the moment, in your senses, that you don't realize you're on a collision course with Scott until you're both on the ground, snarling and rolling over each other again and again, playful nips and scratches that will heal, he pins you and you pin him, and when the morning hits you're the only ones still in that neck of the woods, gasping for breath. His face is painted in breathy hues of pink, lighting him up, and his smile is so contagious you don't even try to fight its lure. Something in you wants to kiss him silly and the thought makes you recoil so hard that you scramble away from him on your hands and feet and nearly end up careening down a hill. Scott, the oblivious idiot, follows you, and the moment is broken when his grin turns rueful. "We should head back," he's saying, scrubbing a hand through his hair and wincing at the brambles, "to the city. I need to look presentable again before my mom sees me and freaks out."You shake your head to snap yourself out of it, hear yourself agreeing without really meaning to, and it takes every cell in your body to resist telling him how messy his eyelashes are.

After that night you withdraw into yourself a little more closely. You see Scott plenty, but he doesn't get that smile anymore, that unbridled joy. You haven't given anyone that smile since before Cam died, and you were never planning on giving it again. Something in you hates Scott for that, for battering at your defenses until you trusted him, because that's the kind of thing you can't just take back. Erica teases you about your new, sullen attitude (and hell, you must really be moping for it to be so much worse than your usual expression) and you lash out so hard she ends up zipping her lips for once.

You regret it once she disappears. You regret a lot of things.

That summer is full of planning and Scott, but not at the same time. With Derek and Peter (and Stiles, on occasion), you work out a game plan and try to figure out anything you can about the alphas and Erica and Boyd. These days are long. Usually the air is filled with the dark of hopelessness and the too-sweet smell of missing someone you love. It's a word you only pull out when someone dies. You don't stop to think about what that means.

When you're with Scott, it's like a different world. Stiles is gone a lot from his house, and Scott complains halfheartedly and you ignore him, because you know exactly where Stiles is and it isn't somewhere Scott is allowed to be. You come close, though. You both work for the summer at the vet with Deaton, and you learn how to sharpen your instincts when it comes to pain and how much to draw, and you learn how to properly vaccinate puppies so impossibly small that you don't understand how they can be alive. You hope that Scott doesn't notice the extra heartbeat in the back room. He doesn't.

When you aren't working, you're spending the money you earned getting food or seeing movies or buying video games. You're kind of dating except for the part where you aren't. It takes you a while to remember that the word for dating without intimacy is just friendship. It takes you even longer to understand why this realization is something of a disappointment. For the time being, you chalk it up to all the secrecy, because if Scott can smell Stiles or Peter on you then he doesn't ask, doesn't talk about it. Maybe he's just oblivious. He can be that way. You cross your fingers too much, that summer, and try to force yourself to remember that lying is part of your genetic makeup, and that luck has never been something you could rely on.

But now, after years and years, you're getting sloppy, and you pretend you don't know why because you were always the best at lying to yourself. Of all people, Stiles is the one to notice.

It starts out as an argument along the lines of 'why are you trying to steal my best friend?' You never really liked Stiles, much, but you respect him enough after everything he's done for you and the pack that you don't break his arm. Internally, you mark up one point for team Lahey and zero for team Stilinski. It isn't as satisfying as you'd hoped. "Seriously, man, it's not cool. I've known Scott forever - I pretty much have dibs on his ass, werewolf-y or not, sorry buddy," and it's that of all things that sends a ridiculous flush up your neck. You curse your complexion a million and a half times while Stiles looks on in shock and then comprehension once he has the sense to backtrack through exactly what he said, as if pieces are sliding into place, and hey, maybe Scott isn't the only one to treat you like a puzzle after all.

It gets worse. From Stiles the word spreads to Derek, somehow, and you don't even want to know what kind of messed up relationship they have, and then to Peter on a day where Derek isn't feeling charitable, and Peter is the kind of guy to bring it up when he's bored. Tease the beta, or something, since you're the only beta around to mess with. Before Scott, in the B.S. times, you would've brushed the accusations off so convincingly that no one would dream to argue. But by this point you're starting to think something's wrong with you, like maybe Stiles knocked a piece of you loose, or maybe worse. You stammer when you talk (not new) and you trip over your feet (not new) and sometimes you even blush (very new). And Scott is still kind and good. You try to give yourself a word, but get stuck somewhere between selfish and broken.

You funnel your frustration into finding threats and smashing them to pulp. The first rogue werewolf of the summer comes to town and you volunteer without giving it a second thought, and if Derek's eyes stay on you too long then you decide not to care. You're the only beta he has left, but you can take care of yourself. He nods, curt, and you're off before you can take a breath. Running, running, running, and following a scent. Your wolf takes over, accepting the primal nature of the act with open jaws. The omega never had a chance.

You keep hitting his face after he's dead, feeling bone give way under bloodied flesh again and then again. Your knuckles are split but you brush it off; they'll heal, they'll heal. They always heal. You think you might be terrifying yourself, but you can't be sure until you get back to the loft and have a panic attack so bad Derek ends up calling Scott. How Scott became your emergency werewolf contact, you have no idea, but you barely even notice him entering. You're shaking, and you can't breathe, and you're a murderer, you're no better than your father, monster, killer, abuser. The ghosts of your past are still following you, and it has not gotten better.

It takes almost ten minutes for Scott to get into your head well enough that he can help you breathe again. Something uncoils in your chest and you heave forward, panting, exhausted. It's only a few beats before you're on your feet, having just enough energy to sprint to the bathroom and empty your stomach until you're dry heaving. When you walk out, you aren't sure what to say. "Are you alright?" asks Scott, and you can smell the anxiety rolling off of him. "Fine," you answer, clipped, and you aren't sure if it counts as lying if everyone knows you're doing it. You walk past him and Derek and end up outside trying to pace a hole in the pavement. You're mortified, you're pretty sure, cheeks flaming at the lack of control you've shown all day. Your only consolation is that you're alone to lick your wounds, but you aren't allowed even that for more than a few breaths.

Unsurprisingly, it's Scott that appears. You try to scowl but you're too tired for anger. Scott does that thing where he lifts his palms up and tries to look non-threatening, and for one absurd second you feel like a rabid animal, like a cornered dog with a flesh wound. "I'm fine," you say through a clenched jaw before he can say something weird and sentimental, "seriously. I just freaked out."

Scott is quiet for a while before he talks. "I saw the omega in the woods," he starts, "or, well, the body. What'd he do to you to make you so mad?"

You laugh unkindly, because it isn't always that easy, because Scott always thinks you're better than you are. "Nothing. He didn't do anything. I just felt like killing something. I started hitting him and I didn't want to stop." You bite back a curse, catch it just soon enough. Something about those eyes makes you honest. Something about that concern makes you want to unfold yourself like reverse origami. You're getting sloppy again.

"But you did. You killed the omega and you did a really, really good job. So why'd you have a panic attack after? I've seen panic attacks from Stiles, especially right after his mom died, but nothing that bad in years. Come on, man," he says, and he's bringing out the eyes again and you don't know how to deal with undiluted kindness, "talk to me, please. I don't understand you sometimes."

You look down at your hands. They seem small and twisted where they sit in your lap, useless. "I couldn't stop," you whisper, finally, "I didn't even want to. He was already dead and I broke his nose."

Scott nods pensively and you want to hit him, too, because he doesn't get it. You're seeing red because you need him to understand, you need just one person on your side, just this once. "I don't know how to not turn into him."

Beside you, Scott stiffens. He knows exactly who you're talking about. "You're not him, Isaac. You will never be him."

As far as encouragement goes, it isn't much, but the sincerity in his voice leaves you short of breath. Somewhere in all this mess Scott started believing in you, maybe even trusting you, and it makes you want to ruin him, ruin the two of you, ruin whatever is hanging in the air. It's what you do. You take beautiful things and rip them apart until your hands are bloody and the things aren't beautiful anymore. When you don't know how to deal with something, you dismantle it, and isn't that lovely? Isn't it just twisted?

If Scott smells the red tint of self-loathing that hits the air, he doesn't mention it. Just tilts his head up toward the dull sky filled to the brim with light pollution, serene from the wrong angle, and breathes.

You start forming a plan that night, and it's so simple you almost laugh. You won't have to worry about getting sloppy anymore. You ache and you ache, but you know this is what you have to do to not feel so afraid all the time. This is how you can reclaim yourself. No longer will your heart beat jump out of rhythm when he smiles at you; no longer will he take things you didn't know you knew how to give. You will not be slave to your emotions, not any longer, not now at least. This needs to end - it's needed to end for a while - and you think you've figured out how to end it. How to push him so hard that he won't be able to bounce back. You know a lot of things, but maybe the things you know best are these: hatred, false confidence, and a startling ability to drive away the people that once loved you, that once cared about you, that once thought you were better than you are. You are so good at proving them wrong.

It should be harder, but the next time you see Scott you've made up your mind. It only takes you ten seconds to walk up to him, confident, put your hands on his face, and kiss the living daylights out of him. You let yourself enjoy it, sick as it may sound. It's almost romantic, in the wrong light, almost tragic. Scott pulls back, shocked, flustered, eyes like saucers and a hand hovering near his mouth, and when he talks his voice comes out strangled. "W-hat?" It isn't even coherent - more garbled and confused than anything else.

"Whoops," you say, not sorry at all, and maybe now he'll leave you well enough alone.

**...**

A/N: This was supposed to be 500 words, max, but Isaac Lahey is not a simple boy to write about. He has his demons, and they are many. Hopefully you find this as interesting to read as I did writing it. This is part 1/2, and though it's dark and will continue to be dark, I promise there will be light at the end of the road. Have faith, dear readers. The name "Isaac" does, after all, mean "he laughs."


	2. Redefinition

You shouldn't have kissed him. Not because it won't drive him away, not because he won't hate you now, but because you can't stop thinking about it, and while your life has been stacked with volumes of thoughts that doesn't mean that thinking is a good thing. You can't un-know the feel of his lips against yours, the frozen juts of cheekbone, the wide gaze heating your skin. His heartbeat was like a hummingbird's and his face was flushed in a way you've never seen it. And you can't stop replaying it in your head.

This was supposed to fix you, this was supposed to help. You were supposed to get control of your life back. But hours later and the phantom feel of his skin on your skin, it has not gotten better. If possible, you're more of a wreck than you were before.

You want to run to displace some energy, but you don't trust yourself alone in the woods, so you sit on your bed in the loft and tap your fingers frenetically against the mattress and jiggle your leg and bite your lip and put every nervous habit you've ever had on display. You wonder if people can see it tattooed across your forehead: I kissed Scott McCall before he could reject me on his own. It's an uncomfortable feeling, wearing your fears on your face, and you didn't know you could blush like wildfire in situations like these, basically unprovoked except for the chorus running through your head, I kissed him I kissed him I kissed him.

Derek barks at you to calm down, or something, you're making him jittery just looking at you. You bark something back about weather patterns and school starting, and it makes so little sense that Derek actually stops for a second and walks toward where you are. It's enough to make you tense up, but not enough to make you scramble back, not even when he pulls out the alpha-red eyes.

"I'm fine," you tell him, and realize how pathetic it is that every other time you open your mouth it's to insist you're perfectly A-okay. It's even more pathetic now that you can't pull it off anymore. Maybe it's harder to hide heartache than a bruise, for you. You wouldn't know. You've never had to try.

Derek rolls his eyes. "You can't afford to shut down, Isaac. People are dying. You can regret whatever you did later, after we've taken down this alpha pack." It's matter of fact, solid, grounding. You nod numbly, mumble an apology. Derek grunts and gets up, wiping his hands off on his shirt as if he could get rid of the traces of caring about something other than the vague, confusing ideal of 'pack' he seems so stuck on. You don't kid yourself that you mean more to him than another piece of the puzzle, another slot to fit into place. You could be anyone, have any face, come from anywhere, and your function would still be the same. Beta. Useful for killing missions, except for when you're too busy having panic attacks and beating up corpses, and not necessarily in that order, either.

The hours tick and you are still restless. Scott does not call you. Stiles does not send any threatening messages, and there are no arrows in your side, so you consider this a victory. You drove him away, like you drove away all the others, even if he needed a bit more pushing than most. You saved yourself the pain that would surely come further down the line. You should be excited, rejoicing, happy to have the poison thorns cut from your stem. Instead, you feel hollower than you did before (and before was hollow, before was gnawing emptiness that you didn't know how to fill, before was ugly and broken and selfish and wrong in a million and one ways).

You want to call and apologize, to take it all back, but you've already jumped from the cliff; now all you have left is the fall. Your phone is staring at you. You pick it up and throw it into the wall so that it shatters, no holds barred, and it feels good. Derek is out and you want to trash the whole loft, just to see if he'll grind you under his boot. You don't. You're too tired for destruction on a large scale, after all you've ruined. The encounter with Scott has drained the fight right out of you.

(The next day, the tense bow-line of your spine snaps, and you ask Derek to spar. He looks at you with something in his expression akin to pity, and it makes you launch yourself at him. He throws you against a wall and you don't get up again, just let yourself collapse, and that's that.)

You avoid Scott wildly for seven days, and it's the longest week of your life. You see him at Deaton's office twice but you act like you're invisible, and he doesn't need your help anyway so maybe to him you are. He asks you to pass things and you always do, sometimes even with an accompanying grunt, but when he pleads with you "Isaac we need to talk please come on don't shut down on me now of all times" you pretend as if he isn't there. You are cool, ice, impossibly fragile but also devoid of warmth. Deaton doesn't say anything, and you never thought you'd miss his weirdly wise fatherly chats but you do, and that's probably when you realize that this entire situation feels like someone is repeatedly slapping you in the face and worse.

"Crap," you say to yourself on the breathless morning of day 8. You want to use more colorful language but a harried mother carrying a toddler has just rounded the corner, and her crazy eyes against the pavement don't beg to be challenged no matter how objectively you know you could beat her in a fight should the need arise. And no, it's not as if the street belongs to her, and no, it's not as if the kid would even understand what you're saying, and yes, okay, maybe you're rambling in your head to avoid reality. It wouldn't be the first time. But you're scared and frustrated and regretful, chagrined, and none of this would've happened if he hadn't gone and liked you. But he did, because he's Scott McCall and kindness is basically his default setting, and you pushed him away because you're Isaac Lahey and everyone leaves you anyway, and your plan was supposed to go off like a key turning in a lock but everything is messier than it was before, and the only one to blame is you. Some things haven't changed, you guess.

The Camden-voice in your head won't shut up. "Come on, bro, it's not too late to fix things," and "Isaac, seriously, grow a pair," and "Laheys are not cowards." You want to tell him a lot of things. "I don't want to fix things. I miss you. That's rich, coming from you; you ran away to the army and you didn't come back, I needed you to come back and you died." You can't tell him anything because he's dead, so instead you scuff your toes against the ground and run a hand through your tangled hair.

Scott finally corners you in the coffee shop on Washington, and when you see him you breathe as deeply as you can and decide to give up. Let it happen, whatever it may be. A growing part of you hopes he yells, because you can deal with that. You might be terrified but you can deal with fear, you understand fear. The other part of you wants him to be quiet and sad and reserved, and for him to walk away unprompted. You are not a fighter by nature.

(There is another part of you, a part of you that wants something impossible, but you're not going to talk about it. It isn't worth the time it would take, anyway.)

That's as long as you have to imagine what's going to happen because suddenly he's right in front of you and it is happening, and it's all you can do to keep your mouth shut. "Why are you avoiding me," he starts, and his phrasing sucks the question right out of it.

"I'm sure you can guess," you reply, hedging, "considering what I did." He crosses his arms and steps closer, boxing you in, and you shove down the feeling that you can't breathe, that the walls are closing down. You're fine, you're fine, you're fine. An apology bubbles to your lips but you don't let it out. If he forgives you, you know you won't be able to push him away again. You always cling too tightly to the things that you should let go; you always hope too much right before they leave you.

Maybe this time Dad will say 'it's okay, son, a C isn't the end of the world. Let's figure this out together.' Maybe this time Derek will say 'Isaac, the way you killed that omega was great, you saved us all.' Maybe this time Scott will walk away before you give him the rest of your heart.

"You ran away before I could even say anything!" he protests, and you scoff.

"You didn't look like you were going to find your voice anytime soon."

Scott splutters. "I wasn't expecting it!"

"Obviously," you say, and if this had gone the way you'd planned you'd be out the door by now. Last word, last laugh, always the last man standing and never better for it. Unfortunately, this is real life, and he isn't about to let you run again without an explanation. Your heart is sinking.

"Isaac," he starts, but you don't let him finish. If he finishes, you're done. If he finishes, you'll drop your love all over the floor and he'll see _everything_, and then he'll leave, and you won't be able to pick any of it back up on your own.

You steel yourself and plunge in like a rogue diver. At this point, there's only one thing you know how to do, only one thing that you're sure will work; it's a good thing you've always been a natural liar. "I didn't mean it." Your voice is lower than you thought it would be, quieter. The kind of voice that could tear a heart clean in two. "It was a huge misunderstanding, and I'm sorry, and I shouldn't have done it." He isn't replying, isn't responding at all, so you tack on another sorry and grab your coffee and scoot past him. He's left enough of an opening between all of the things he's leaving unsaid, and you're good at spotting escape routes.

The loft is quiet when you get back. Derek is not there, Peter is not there, all you can hear is the gentle whir of the air conditioning and the branch that taps the window every three seconds. Things are fine. You're fine. Physically unscathed, at least, if that counts for anything.

After everything, you're not sure that it does. Red follows you where you go, dripping, sometimes scratches and sometimes bruises or blood poisoning and sometimes the bitter sting of regret. Sometimes it's the rage that does it, the years and years of fear bubbling up into something primal. You've always had a wolf in you. You never needed claws or canines to prove it.

You think back to elementary school show and tell, when your family was whole and your eyes were wide and _this is my cape, it helps me fly_. It got torn up along the way, among other things. You blame the claws.

No one returns for six hours. In that time, you wash the dishes (habit), almost trip down the stairs twice (habit), take a shower (habit), and run ten and a half miles through the woods (not habit). The leaves catch on your skin and the cuts heal over immediately, but it isn't enough. You run faster, faster, until the trees are a blur and the only thing keeping you from smacking headfirst into a tree is pure, blood instinct. By the time you get back to the loft you're drained. Mentally drained, that is; you feel like you could go ten rounds with a sumo wrestler and come out on top physically, but that isn't going to help when your mind has twisted itself into a Gordian knot.

Your ghosts gather around you and lift you high on their shoulders. _Survivor,_ they whisper, electric, air crackling, _you made it_. You want to banish every one of them. You want to delete them and everything they stand for, the idea that somehow you made it this far because you did something, like you didn't have help, like you aren't the luckiest guy alive, like you even wanted to make it here at all. You squeeze your eyes shut and will them to disappear until you're on solid ground again, standing on your feet, back hunched under the weight of your years.

Peter gets back first. He looks like he's considering saying something to you, then shrugs and walks up the stairs. Curious and bored, you follow, find him lounging on the couch, very obviously not reading the book in his hands. "What?" he asks, still staring blankly at the page. You don't really know what to say, try anyway, "any luck with the alphas?"

Peter rolls his eyes. "None. Derek is still out there doing whatever he does – brooding, or something," he indicates brooding with a wave of his hand, long fingers trailing off like an ellipses. "I thought I'd come back and relax, but you're fidgeting so much it's making me nervous." He raises his eyebrows expectantly.

"I might've kissed Scott," you mumble in a rush, and it's lucky he heard because you're not sure you could've gotten it out again, are shocked at your own boldness.

Peter's expression doesn't change.

You take a breath. "And then I told him I didn't mean it." I meant it hangs in the air like a lightning strike.

"I'm starting to seriously question Derek's decision to make a pack out of emotionally unstable teenagers." He rolls his eyes again because that's a thing for him. "I'm not a therapist. I'm not giving you relationship advice. Just deal with it, and preferably soon, because we have more important things to worry about than your sad infatuation with that kid."

It would be like a slap to the face if it wasn't so Peter, so you just nod awkwardly and shuffle back downstairs, then out the door. The evening moon is half-full, and you look up at it balefully, want to howl and howl and fall to your knees because nothing makes sense anymore and you are the wolf and the wolf is you. Instead, you walk steadily and find yourself at the McCalls' house without actively having decided to go there. You've stood in front of the front door for long enough to talk yourself out of knocking when it suddenly opens and Melissa McCall runs right into you.

"Isaac!" she says, "I- I didn't see you, I'm sorry. I'm kind of in a rush right now but Scott's inside, make yourself at home." She scoops her keys off of the floor where she'd dropped them in the scuffle and turns to yell _Scott! Isaac's at the door!_ over her shoulder before sliding past you and hopping into the car.

Well. You suppose that settles that.

You amble inward with your hands shoved into your pockets, slowly because you aren't sure you're welcome. It's nearly ten in the evening, surely you'll get turned away, surely Scott has better things to do than watch you stumble through another pitiful apology. You aren't even sure what you're apologizing for anymore: the kiss, the lie about the kiss, all of the times you wanted to kiss him, all of the times you didn't. Maybe every time he put a smile on your face and you let him. Maybe every time you put a smile on his face and he let you. Maybe just everything. You're a walking apology. You're a stutter. He deserves better, and you know that, and you're sorry.

The first thing Scott says to you is "you're an awful liar," and before you can even begin to comprehend what he's insinuating you're taken aback, because there's no way he's actually serious, right? You're the best liar you know. You're excellent.

And then it hits you. "What do you mean?" you ask, because you have to know, you have to _know_ that he's serious.

He looks up from the ground, eyes soft and wary. "At the coffee shop. When you said you're sorry you kissed me. You weren't sorry. At least, I don't think so." He seems nervous, unsure, and it's an odd look on him. "You always- you do this thing, when you lie, with your hand, it's like some part of you needs to move." And suddenly you know exactly what he's talking about, the one tic you never bothered to correct because you always noticed it in everyone but yourself. No one ever called you out on it until today. No one ever bothered to see it.

The air is thin with the promise that you could just reach out and touch him. He's right in front of you in a way he wasn't before. You have to do something, now, it's your turn to talk, but you don't know what to say. After this conversation you will not be the same.

"You're right," you end up responding, because you're terrible at being anything but honest with him, "I meant it. But I am sorry." You are. You really, really are, because this could've been something, you see that now. Scott would have loved you in his own way, and it would've been enough, dating without intimacy, friendship. But you went and ruined it, and even if he forgives you it won't be the same. It can't be. "I, ah, kinda freaked out."

He looks at you like you're the most peculiar person in the world, and there he is again, punching through your walls. "Why do you keep apologizing?" He sounds genuinely curious and not at all like he hates you. You want to pry him open and see what makes him tick, if only to understand for a second why he hasn't given up on you yet.

"Because it was selfish," you say, "and dumb. It just made a mess out of everything."

His lopsided smile is like a blindside, like whiplash. "You never asked me."

What? "What?"

"If I meant it back." He looks like the sun and you can't stop staring. This is probably a metaphor for your life, but your heart is beating too fast for you to be thinking about metaphors, now.

"Well?" you ask, certain in a way you never really knew how to be before right now, "Did you?"

He pulls out a grin this time, even brighter in all its glory, and you are entirely fearless for the first time in your life. You don't know what tomorrow will hold, don't know anything, really, but you hope. For once, just once, you let yourself hope, and it's a beautiful thing. You think _my past, his smile, my dreams, his love_. You think _all the things we could do together_.

You think _I would follow him anywhere_, and when he finally kisses you it feels like every new beginning you've ever known has led you here: to the silence like lake water, to the earthy hum of the radiator, to the boy across from you with the sunshine smile and the too-big heart. To all things hopeful. All things _home_.

...

A/N: Thank you a lot, if you read this far. This story took a lot of my heart to write, and it followed me around until I finished it. I hope you enjoyed what I managed to create. 3


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